Annual Conference & Exhibit

The Annual Waste Management Conference and Exhibit is the highlight of The Forum’s regularly scheduled events.

A Planning Committee is hard at work developing a timely and informative program and an impressive roster of speakers.
A program announcement and registration flier will be e-mailed to those on the Forum’s mailing list.
If you wish to be on the Conference mailing list, please go to the Contact Us page and fill out an E-mail comment.
Include your name and e-mail address. Be sure to indicate that you want to receive the flier.

Anyone interested in exhibiting their products or services at the conference, or contributing, should
complete and send an exhibit order form to the Forum. If you have questions about exhibiting at the
conference, or contributing, send an E-mail to: Forum Exhibit.
This year’s conference will be held at the Sheraton Fairplex Hotel and Conference Center located at
601 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona CA 91768

Conference Schedule

5:00am – 7:00am Vendor Set up

7:30-8:00Registration and Meeting Time with Vendors

8:00-8:15Welcoming Remarks – Chair and Co-Chairs from the Conference Committee

8:15-8:40 Breakfast Keynote Speaker -Johnny Gonzalez with Environmental Land Management (ELM) Goats, will discuss his use of Goats and their environmental benefits.

To register please click on the links below:

Speaker Bio’s

Glenn Acosta, LACSD

Senior Engineer at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts with strategic planning responsibilities for solid waste facilities and the agency’s representative on regulatory and legislative affairs related to solid waste policy. Over the last 20 years, Glenn has represented the agency on air quality issues, worked as an operations engineer at the agency’s largest wastewater treatment plant, and overseen planning efforts for landfills, transfer stations, and material recovery facilities. He currently serves as Vice Chair on the SWANA Legislative Task Force. He holds a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from UC Irvine.

Bert Ball is the founder and Executive Director of L.A. SHARES, the world’s largest nonprofit materials reuse program. L.A. SHARES takes business donations of reusable materials and makes them available free of charge to the thousands of nonprofit organizations and schools located throughout the City of Los Angeles.

Since 1994, L.A. SHARES has redistributed more than $180,000,000.00 worth of items to local schools and nonprofits and has become the largest single donor of goods and materials to the Los Angeles School District, the Recreation and Parks Community, the Arts and Theater Community, the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Community, After School Enrichment Programs, Senior Centers, the Domestic Violence Prevention Community and the Charter School community, among others. For more information please visit their website: www.lashares.org.

Mr. Ball has received numerous commendations for his work with L.A. SHARES. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) honored him with an “Outstanding Environmental Achievement” Award and the E.P.A Administrator named L. A. SHARES as “the model reuse program for America.”

In 2013, L.A. SHARES was awarded “Nonprofit of the Year in LA” by the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Along with serving as an advisor to the State of Hawaii, Mr. Ball has consulted for the cities of Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix and San Francisco to create materials reuse programs that replicate the successful L.A. SHARES model.

Mr. Ball received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lehigh University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television’s Producers Program. L.A. SHARES became the basis of his Master thesis.

With an extensive background in business and arts management, Mr. Ball has created and managed art galleries, a video bar, film and reading series, and nightclubs in both New York and Los Angeles.

Mr. Ball has also served as a Board member of the Nissan Foundation, the charitable arm of the international automobile and truck maker; the Los Angeles Business Federation, an Advisory Board member of the International House of Blues Foundation, an Advisory Committee Member of the California Arts Council’s Adopt a School through the Arts Program and an Advisory Board member of the Riordan Volunteer Leadership Development Program.

Trevor Blythe has over 10 years of experience as a consultant in the sustainable materials management industry. Trevor works daily with local governments and private industry to overcome operational and financial barriers to implementing sustainability programs at the municipal scale. With the passage of AB 1826 and its organics recycling mandate, Mr. Blythe has assisted several cities in developing and implementing organics diversion programs with sustainable and fair rate structures that ensure all parties involved have an incentive to participate. Most recently, Trevor worked with the City of Anaheim and Republic Waste Services to launch a pilot source-separated organics program with over 40 participating restaurants. In 2014, Trevor completed his Masters of Business Administration degree in sustainable management at Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. During his coursework at Presidio, Trevor explored market-based solutions for returning key nutrients from organic waste back to the soil. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Sciences from the University of California, Santa Barbara with an emphasis on Geographic Information Systems.

Robert is a Senior Environmental Scientist with the California Department of Resource Recovery and Recycling and is an expert on the topics of AB 901 Regulations, household hazardous waste (including used oil), waste tires, extended producer responsibility, and lifecycle-driven policy-making. Robert has professional experience as a wildlife biologist, specializing in migratory songbirds of the Sierra Nevada foothills, as well as California water rights issues.

Johnny Gonzales is field and operation manager for Environmental Land Management ELM

ELM was founded in 1998 while searching for a resource to clean canyons and slopes. Goats turned out to be both a cost effective and efficient way to mitigate these typical sites. Our concept of integrating goats, mechanical and manual labor allows us to take on any job with confidence. Some of the key things that goats and the integrated process do is: 1) carbon sequestration; 2) reduction of methane gas; 3) removal of invasive plants and re-seeding; 4) site neutralization; 5) water conservation and 6) site preservation. Goat droppings are bacteria neutral and nitrogen neutral while returning viable nutrients back into the soil. Goats are an invaluable resource for native habitat by preserving indigenous plants and removing competing invasive, and in doing this, they establish exceptional natural firebreaks.
ELM is working with cities, counties, states and federal agencies along with municipalities and utility companies, as well as with private and residential properties.

Kreigh has served as the Recycling Coordinator for the City of Burbank since 2003. He approaches the City’s Zero Waste goal as an opportunity to increase right livelihood, improve the health of the community and natural environments. He previously worked with non-profit and public agencies on recycling education, urban forestry, school gardens, solar education and active transportation. Kreigh draws on the principles of simplicity, the power of community and the elegance of natural systems to advance the City’s sustainability programs.

Michael A. Hestrin was elected as Riverside County District Attorney in June 2014 and was sworn in as the District Attorney on Jan. 5, 2015.
Hestrin was born in the Coachella Valley and he graduated in 1993 from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in history. After college, he spent a year living in Mexico with relatives working as a reporter for a small newspaper based in Guadalajara. He then returned to the United States to begin his legal studies at Stanford University. Hestrin graduated from Stanford in 1997, with both a Juris Doctorate in Law and a master’s degree in Latin American studies.
Before being elected as District Attorney, Hestrin spent 18 years as a line prosecutor in the DA’s Office. During his years as a prosecutor, he had the honor to represent the people of Riverside County in some of the most difficult and challenging cases. He has completed more than 100 jury trials during his career. As Trial Team Leader for the District Attorney’s Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit, he prosecuted those who target and abuse children. For most of his last 10 years with the DA’s Office prior to becoming District Attorney, Hestrin was assigned to the Homicide Unit where he conducted more than 35 murder trials including seven successful death penalty cases.
Hestrin has been very fortunate to be recognized for his achievements during his legal career. In 2003, 2005, and again in 2010, he was named Countywide Prosecutor of the Year for Riverside County. Hestrin was chosen by the legal publication, The Daily Journal, as one of 2008’s “Top Twenty Lawyers Under Forty” for all of California. In 2009, he was honored as the Statewide Prosecutor of the Year by the California District Attorney Investigators Association. In 2010, the California District Attorneys Association recognized him as California’s Outstanding Prosecutor of the Year.
In addition to prosecuting cases, Hestrin conducted trainings for prosecutors, paralegals, law enforcement officers, Riverside County Bar Association members, and social workers in ethics, trial advocacy, sex offender prosecution, homicide prosecution, and capital case litigation. He has also been an adjunct professor at Azusa Pacific University for the last 10 years teaching American Government, Introduction to Criminal Law and Procedure and Latin American History. Hestrin currently lives in Murrieta with his wife and children.

Patti Larson is Executive Director of Food Finders, a 27 year old food recovery nonprofit that supports more than 250 pantries and shelters across L.A. and Orange County. She brings 20+ years of business and marketing experience to her directorship, a position she took over in 2011 upon the founder’s retirement. Since then Food Finders’ staff has doubled, and the organization was recently honored as one of the Nonprofits of the Year at by California Nonprofits.

Mark McDannel is Manager of the Solid Waste Department’s Energy Recovery Section at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. The section operates landfill gas-to-energy and waste-to-energy plants that generate over 80 MW of electricity, buys and sells energy and related attributes for the agency, and is leading the Districts efforts in food waste recycling.

Prior to joining the Districts, Mr. McDannel worked for 21 years in air quality and combustion consulting. He holds an M.S. in Environmental and Mechanical Engineering from UC Irvine.

Tony Michelman, Ovus Partners 360
Prior to co-founding Ovus Partners 360, Mr. Michelman served as Senior Vice-President and co-founder of the NAI Capital Consulting and Advisory Division with Jim Orloff. His talent as a negotiator in complex real estate transactions and creative approach to multi-layered development projects is at the core of his professional skill set.

From 2005 to 2013, Mr. Michelman served as Real Estate Advisor to the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), sharing the account with Mr. Orloff. The two worked closely with Larry Eisenberg, who was the agency’s Executive Director at the time. Mr. Michelman, Mr. Orloff, and Mr. Eisenberg are the Principals of Ovus Partners 360.

Some of his transactions for LACCD included the purchase of industrial properties for re-positioning as institutional LEED Certified buildings and the advent and installation of food courts at multiple colleges. He was particularly successful in finding solutions to eminent domain related issues.

The LACCD building program was the largest Green project in the United States. 84 energy efficient buildings were constructed during Mr. Michelman’s tenure, a number of them net-zero.

As a representative of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, Mr. Michelman kept key entertainment, technology, and manufacturing companies in the Los Angeles area by locating new facilities. One project featured the adaptive reuse of an antiquated office building which became a prime hotel property.

In brokerage scenarios, Mr. Michelman has represented various retail companies such as Best Buy, Home Depot, CVS, and Staples in their disposition activities. He is experienced in 1031 tax deferred transactions and other investment vehicles and has consummated over 100 million dollars of commercial real estate transactions.

Widely read as a columnist in the Century City News, Mr. Michelman’s articles examined both local and national commercial real estate hot-button issues in a sociologic and humorous style.

Mr. Michelman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where he played varsity tennis. He is a vested member of the Writer’s Guild of America.
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Dr. Samuel Sasu is an Environmental Scientist at the California State Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (CALRECYCLE) Long Beach Office.

He earned his Masters and PhD degree in Environmental Engineering at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Dr Sasu has a lot of experience working on environmental and sustainability projects locally here in California, USA and internationally i.e. in Europe and Africa. He has also published scientific papers and made presentations at conferences, symposiums, seminars. He is currently Adjunct Professor at Santa Monica College.

Ms. Stephens has a B.S. in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles and 14 years of experience in environmental consulting.She has been involved with air quality permitting, regulatory compliance, and emissions estimation for landfills and industrial facilities.Ms. Stephens has worked with many of the air districts in California, as well as Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona, including the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), Bay Area AQMD, San Diego County Air Pollution Control District (SDCAPCD), Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP), Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) and Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ).She has completed emissions estimates and inventories and has prepared numerous permit-to-construct/operate permit applications. She oversees air compliance for more than 30 landfills located throughout the southwestern United States, for both private and public entities.

Fred Summers, Director, SOVA Community Food and Resource Program, Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles
An alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, Fred Summers moved to Los Angeles in 1978 and began a business career that included 18 years as a personnel recruiter and 10 years in international supply chain management. In 2006 he chose to apply his operational expertise in support of the SOVA Community Food & Resource Program of Jewish Family Service where he serves as Director. During his tenure, the program has more than tripled in size, has greatly expanded its range of services and the nutritional content of its food. JFS SOVA is among the local leaders in “food rescue” collecting and redistributing over half a million pounds of food each year that would otherwise be wasted. Fred provides leadership and support to a range of hunger relief efforts at the local and state level, has served on the advisory committees of several non-profit organizations and is an active advocate, speaker and panelist on issues relating to food insecurity and poverty. In 2013, he received the coveted Tony Collier award for his commitment to fighting hunger.